


What Makes Us Feel Alive

by amczingphil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Fluff, M/M, Magic, Minor Injuries, Phandom Reverse Bang 2018, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-04 04:40:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amczingphil/pseuds/amczingphil
Summary: Dan wasn't expecting to be told that he was a wizard at eleven years old. He wasn't expecting to go to a school for young witches and wizards. He wasn't expecting to regularly spend nights in the infirmary due to magical related mishaps, and he definitely wasn't expecting to meet the same boy every time he ended up there.Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was a happy little accident; but as Dan grows and progresses through the years at Hogwarts, he finds his feelings growing for the accident prone Hufflepuff





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was based on [this ](https://ayushikuu.tumblr.com/post/173716266102/what-makes-us-feel-alive-phan-hogwarts-au)beautiful art by @[ayushikuu](https://ayushikuu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> A huge thank you to @[fourthingsandawizard](https://fourthingsandawizard.tumblr.com/) for beta reading this hot mess 
> 
> I've been meaning to write a Hogwarts AU for the longest time and when I saw the lovely art, I knew that it was the perfect time!!

When Dan first saw the castle towering above him he couldn't help but feel a small inkling of fear; it was huge, and had towering spikes that reached into the sky and looming towers that looked frail, as though they could be knocked over by just the briefest wind. The sheer size of the castle made him feel unsafe in the rickety, self-rowing boat that was slowly but surely taking him closer to the enchanting building. The castle itself looked solid and yet vulnerable at the same time, and he wasn't sure how that was possible but somehow he knew that the answer had to be magic.

Magic was a strange concept for Dan; he had spent the first eleven years of his life thinking that he was just a little odd, and that there was nothing that could be done about him. He had seen the way his parents had looked at him when they thought that he wasn't looking, he had heard the hushed whispers behind closed hands, and he knew that there was nothing he could do to negate their words because he didn't completely disagree with them.

He had known that he was weird. He had known that he was the freak of the family, the one who had somehow managed to repair the homework that his toddler brother had torn up because he was playing with it too vigorously. He was the kid who brought home a pet owl from the park only to have his mother screech at him about the risks of rabies as she shooed it from the kitchen by waving a black bag at it. He even remembered the time that he had fallen off the monkey bars at the park and had somehow managed to get away with having no injuries at all.

His mother had sworn that she had heard his leg make a cracking noise, but he had merely clambered back to his feet feeling a little shaken and apprehensive because of the fall before running off to play on the swings instead without feeling any pain in the slightest. His mother had still forced him to go through countless x-rays and hours in the waiting room of A&E so that she could be sure that he was really unharmed.

He had been absolutely fine.

Their unspoken questions had all been answered when Dan's letter to Hogwarts arrived through the letterbox, a thick envelope containing something that Dan's dad called parchment. Dan wasn't entirely sure what that was but he knew that it was thicker than paper. The ink on it was thin and watery as though it had been written with something other than a pen, but the medium quickly became uninteresting when he realised what the letter contained.

It was an invitation to a boarding school designed for witches and wizards; Hogwarts.

At first they had all deemed it a joke, a rather creepy one given that whoever had sent it was aware of Dan's full name and address, but before they could even think about reporting it to the authorities there had been a solid knock on the door. The knock had come from a  rather stern looking woman who had welcomed herself into their home as she waved a stick in the air and began giving them all an in depth history of Hogwarts and a list of all the things that they would teach Dan during his time with them.

"My dad said that I would learn to fly in my first year here," Dan overheard a girl say in a very snooty tone, pulling him out of his thoughts, "I told him that there is no way I'm getting on a broom. It's too scary."

"Well, I am," a boy replied, "I'm going to be the first ever first year Slytherin to make it onto the team."

"How do you know you'll be in Slytherin?" Dan heard the girl ask.

"It's the coolest house," the boy said, and Dan could almost hear the shrug in his voice. "Besides, my brother is in that house and those things run in families."

"Nuh uh," the girl protested, "I have two older siblings here and my sister is a Ravenclaw and my brother is a Hufflepuff."

"Hufflepuff sucks," the boy said with a snort, "only idiots get sorted into Hufflepuff."

"Take that back!" the girl demanded harshly and there was a shuffle which made Dan imagine that she had whirled around in her seat to face the boy who had offended her.

"I don't have to take back the truth, there's nothing you can do to change it."

There was a brief scuffle and then Dan heard a loud splash followed by various shrieks and peels of laughter. Dan  _ did  _ turn to look after that, no longer afraid of being caught staring; he wasn't the only one looking at what was going on, after all.

"Help! Help! The squid is going to eat me, get me out now!"

There was a brief moment of silence as his words filtered through the air, and then Dan heard a louder voice break out over the panicked mutters as people began to wonder what exactly was hiding in the murky water beneath their boats.

"Calm down, nothing in this water would eat the likes of you," it was one of the teachers from the school. "Now just grip onto the side of the boat, they’re enchanted so that when you hold onto the side of them a little step appears under your foot to help you boost yourself back in."

That was an interesting idea to Dan and a small part of him was tempted to jump over the side just so that he could test it out for himself. He wasn't that stupid though.

"Ew," the girl shrieked as the boy made his way back into the boat, "you're wet and smelly, couldn't you have gone into another boat?"

"Well, it's your fault," the boy replied. "You're the one who shoved me into the water."

"You were being mean," the girl said.

"Ten pounds says that they're a thing by the end of the year," a small voice whispered in Dan's ear.

It was a small, chubby boy with a head full of massive blond curls that seemed to scream for the attention of those around him.

"What?" Dan asked.

"Oh, you're not Muggleborn?" the boy asked, looking strangely disappointed. "I'm sorry, I'm not really sure how to convert it into Galleons yet."

"Oh, no, I am Muggleborn," Dan said. The word Muggle felt foreign in his mouth as he said it, but he supposed that there would be a lot of words that he wouldn't be familiar with cropping up in the next few years of his life.

"Oh good," the boy said, "I mean, I know that it's not a bad thing to be Muggleborn, but for a moment there I was wondering whether you were the sort to hold that against someone."

"Why would I hold that against you?" Dan asked in confusion.

"Wait, you don't know?"

"Don't know what?" Dan asked with apprehension. He had known that there was something that was bound to go wrong, everything so far had seemed too good to be true.

"There's a lot of stigmata in the wizarding world about Muggleborns."

"Don't you mean stigma?" Dan asked.

"Probably, I was just trying to remember the word that my mum used when speaking about it," the boy said. “Apparently there are some witches and wizards who think that some people are bad or not as powerful because they come from Muggle families."

"Oh, that’s sad," Dan said, "is it true?"

"Why would it be true?" the boy asked.

"I don't really know much about Muggles and magic yet, but I kind of understand that there's magic in family trees and none in others, but it kind of makes sense that coming from a family of magic would mean that there was more patent magic in someone."

"Yeah, but it doesn't work that way, in fact some of the most powerful witches and wizards are actually Muggleborns or Half-bloods."

"Really?" Dan asked. "That's kind of reassuring, I didn't really want to be set up to fail."

"We won't fail," the boy said surely, "we're from Muggles, we understand how special all of this is around us, we haven't grown up with it."

"You're right," Dan said, feeling reassured. "By the way, I'm Dan."

"I'm Elliot," the boy said with a grin.

Dan couldn't help but return his smile and he was pretty sure that he had just made his first friend in the wizarding world.

"I don't know much about the different houses," Dan admitted, "but I'm kind of hoping for Hufflepuff."

"You are?" Elliot asked, "why?"

"Is there something wrong with Hufflepuff?" Dan asked.

"Nope, I was just curious about why you were interested in that house."

"Oh, I heard that that's where the nicest people are, and I think that would be good in a new school." Dan said.

"There's nice people in all the houses, and there's mean people in all of the houses," Elliot told him. "I wouldn't worry too much about where you get placed."

"I kinda hope that we get put in the same house," Dan admitted, "you're the first person I've spoken to properly here."

"Me too," Elliot said with a wide grin.

"We're nearly there," Dan heard the snooty voiced girl say, "finally, I can get away from your stench."

"I wouldn't have a stench if it wasn't for the fact that you pushed me in the water," the boy answered.

"Well, I wouldn’t have pushed you in the water if you hadn't dissed my family."

"I wasn't dissing your family, I was dissing Hufflepuffs."

"I'm glad that we're almost there just for the sake of getting away from their annoying arguments," Elliot said.

"Me too," Dan admitted. The girl's voice was grating on his nerves more than he cared to admit and there was a distinctive cockiness about the boy that bugged him. They were both too annoying and if Dan was being honest, he was kind of in the mood to shove them both off the boat.

"Right, safety first, children," the teacher called out, "we've already had one person take a little swim, we don't need any more. The boats will self tether to the docks, please wait until they have completely stopped moving before you climb out. Once you are out of the boat make sure that you wait a few just a few metres up the dock for the rest of your classmates and we will all walk up to the castle for the Sorting Ceremony."

"You know, I heard that there used to be a half giant that escorted students up to the castle," Elliot informed Dan.

"Who told you that?"

"Someone I overheard in Diagon Alley, " Elliot said, "they seemed pretty disappointed that the giant would no longer be taking us to the castle."

"Did they say why?"

"Nope, just that he would be doing other things," Elliot said, "although they did mention that there was a time that the boat malfunctioned and sank under his weight."

"How big are giants?" Dan asked, and he couldn't deny that he was almost afraid of the answer.

"I mean, Hagrid is a half giant, but yeah, they're big."

"Can you guys shut up and get off the boat, we've stopped," the snooty voice of the girl piped up, and Dan could barely contain the temptation to roll his eyes at her.

"Come on, Dan," Elliot said, "we're almost there."

"It's a bit harsh don't you think?" Dan asked as he climbed out of the boat. "To make us go through the Sorting Ceremony after we've spent the entire day travelling to a new place."

"A bit," Elliot agreed. "All I want is to sleep for ten years."

"We can't sleep until we're sorted though," Dan said glumly.

"I guess it makes sense," Elliot said, "all the beds are in the dorms and you have to go through the houses' common rooms to get to those, so we wouldn't have anywhere to sleep if we didn't get sorted first."

"I don't know, I think I could find a little patch of grass to sleep on," Dan said. "I'm tired enough that that would be comfortable."

"Right," the teacher spoke up again, interrupting their conversation. "Now that you're all out of the boats you may follow me up to the castle. We will gather outside of The Great Hall and we will wait for someone to come out and tell us that it is time for me to escort you in to be sorted.

"Before the Sorting you will listen to a short introduction from Professor Dumbledore, and then after the Sorting there will be a brief speech. You will then be allowed to enjoy the feast before you are taken to your new dorms."

"Professor Dumbledore is amazing," Elliot whispered, "I've heard so much about him. Apparently he is the greatest wizard to ever exist."

"There is always someone better than the 'greatest person,' they just don't get the same exposure," Dan said.

"When you say things like that you sound old," Elliot said, wrinkling his nose.

"Maybe I'm just an old soul," Dan said.

"Maybe," Elliot conceded, "but for now come on, I want to find out what kind of person I am."

"If you think about it, trying on the Sorting Hat is just like taking an online personality quiz, except we listen more to the hat," Dan said. "At least with the online quizzes we can retake them or pretend that we never got the results we did, but when it comes to the hat, it's sacred."

"If you say so," Elliot said with a shrug. "You're weird, Dan."

"Yeah, well so are you," Dan muttered.

"Fair enough," Elliot said.

The inside of the castle was everything that Dan had imagined and more. It looked old, but not derelict or creepy. Instead it was ancient but sophisticated in a way that Dan would imagine a prestigious Muggle school would look - that made sense in a way because from what Dan had learned Hogwarts was in fact the most prestigious school going for young witches and wizards.

The hallway that led up to The Great Hall was big enough in itself to be considered a great hall, which made Dan apprehensive to discover how big the actual hall in itself was. It was going to be filled with students from all the other years and they would all be staring at the newbies as they were sorted into their new houses.

Would they snicker at their nerves, or would they feel sympathetic and remember when they had been in their place and struggling to build up the confidence to sit on the stool in front of the entire school to be sorted into the house that would define them for the rest of their life?

Logically Dan knew that it didn't matter, none of the students would remember his name or even his face after the Sorting Ceremony; there were too many new pupils to be sorted and there would be too many names to remember.

The doors to the hall were made of a sturdy wood, stained by the years of use and lined with carefully carved iron. They were the only thing between Dan and a hall full of excited school pupils who were just seeing their friends again after a long summer. Dan could hear the rumbling of laughter and chatter through the thick doors.

Dan was sure that he jumped out of his skin when a ghost made its way through the solid doors.

"Elliot," Dan muttered, "do you see that?"

"Yeah, that's a ghost," Elliot said, "in fact I think it’s Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington."

"Why is there a ghost and how do you know that?" Dan asked. His face felt numb and tingly at the same time as he stared at the ghost that was conversing with their teacher, or as Dan was beginning to learn, their professor.

"There's tons of ghosts here at the castle,” Elliot said. “I got a book about the school from Flourish and Blotts that I read on the train on the way here and it gave a detailed history of them all."

"You read an entire book on the train here?" Dan asked. "How?"

"Quite easily, it's not that strange," Elliot said with a shrug.

"But-" Dan was cut off by the sound of their Professor clearing her throat.

"Alright, it's time for us to enter. I would like to ask you to form an orderly queue in twos and we will gather at the front of the hall where you will be called upon in alphabetical order by surname and be sorted into your house."

It was as if by magic that the doors swung open after she had finished speaking and Dan was unnerved to find that there were hundreds of faces peering at him. Well, not him exactly, but it still felt like he was being targeted by their gazes.

"No dawdling, keep up," the professor told them, "it will only take a short while to sort you all."

Dan fell into place at Elliot's side as they walked in a line towards the front of the room, and he tried his best to focus all of his attention on the room surrounding him rather than the faces of his future peers who were staring curiously in order to get a good look at the hordes of new kids that they would be able to lord their power over.

The Great Hall was much larger than Dan had feared it would be and he couldn't help but feel extremely small and insignificant in it. Some of the greatest witches and wizards had been in his position, and he wondered how they had felt in his shoes. Had they been as terrified as he felt? Had they felt the urge to plaster on a fake smile and a look of confidence? Had they felt as worried about their future?

Dan's parents had really let him get on a train to an unknown location without batting an eyelid because a stranger had come to their house and convinced them that magic was real. All of it felt a little insane to Dan, but as he stared at the candles floating above his head, he couldn't help but wonder where the wax was going. It would be a little bit unsafe to have hot wax dripping onto the heads of unsuspecting students.

"Are you alright?" Elliot whispered to him.

"Are we allowed to talk right now?" Dan whispered back.

"Not sure," Elliot shrugged, "but the ghosts are making more noise than us so I figure that we’ll be alright."

"If you say so," Dan muttered.

"Anyway," Elliot muttered, "are you ok?"

"I think so," Dan said, "I'm just very aware of the number of people that are watching us right now."

"Me too," Elliot agreed. "You know what's helping me? The sky."

"The sky isn't real though," Dan said, "it's an incantation, there aren't any clouds above us right now."

"Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean that it's not interesting."

"True," Dan said as he looked past the candles at the sky that wasn't real.

There was a dark sky lit up by tiny twinkling stars as far as the eye could see, and if Dan hadn't known better he would have thought that there wasn't a roof on the Hall that they were in. Thankfully he didn't have to make that embarrassing assumption because he had overheard some people talking about the sky on the train. Apparently it was a true reflection of the sky outside, unless there was an extremely powerful wizard in the room and their mood was potent enough to take over and change the sky's appearance.

"Dan, careful," Elliot snapped as he latched onto Dan's arm and pulled him back to the centre of the small walkway they were making their way down to be sorted.

"Oh, sorry," Dan muttered to the person with the yellow tie that he had almost landed on when he had veered off course because he was staring at the ceiling rather than where he was going. Thankfully the pupil just waved off his apology with an amused smile.

Dan felt his face flush red. "I think that I'll just focus on where I'm walking," he muttered to Elliot.

"Good plan, crushing someone before we even make it into a house would be a bad idea."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly."

They gathered at the front of the hall where an elderly wizard was standing by a decrepit looking hat. The wizard was easily identifiable to Dan as Professor Dumbledore: the most powerful wizard alive according to sources.

He didn't look much like a powerful wizard, but Dan supposed that looks could be rather deceiving.

"Welcome, welcome," Dumbledore said in a strong and wise voice, "I would like to say a warm welcome back to all of our returning pupils and a kind welcome to our new ones who have only just began to encounter the magic of Hogwarts.

"I know you are all tired and hungry, and I will therefore save the speech until after you are sorted and ready to fill your bellies with the first of many hearty meals that Hogwarts supplies. Let the sorting begin!"

There was a fierce round of applause from the students who were already seated at the tables and Dan was amused to see the other first years surrounding him look around in confusion as they slowly began to applaud too.

"Aayr, Lena," A stern looking witch with robes of emerald green called out as she began to unroll the thick scroll she was holding.

Dan watched as a tall girl with the brightest red hair he had even seen scampered up the steps to the stool and waited for the hat to be placed on her head.

_ Gryffindor! _

There ought to have been more concern from the people around him about the fact that there was an actual talking hat in the room, but apparently it was normal. Dan seemed to be among the minority of people who were panicking about the talking piece of clothing. Hats couldn’t talk. 

Yet it had.

The names kept coming and Dan kept watching as one by one people went up the the stool and were sorted into their house; friends celebrated together, families embraced siblings, tears were shed, but progress was made.

Until eventually Dan heard his name being called.

"Howell, Daniel."

There was a split moment of terror that there wouldn't be a house for him: what if he was too strange, what if he just didn't fit in anywhere? What if none of the houses were right for him?

_ Interesting, interesting,  _ the hat whispered into his head,  _ there are a few houses that would suit you it seems, but of course I can only assign you to one. So what shall it be? Do I focus on your intelligence and take you to the house that could help you to build on your knowledge? You could rule the world. Or do I send you to Slytherin, where you could make connections that would set you up for life? _

_ With your brain and slyness you could rule Slytherin, but then there's also the fact that you're a scared child to take into account. You made a huge journey on your own, you didn't even flinch when you boarded that tiny rowboat, you saw the towers of Hogwarts but rather than looking at them in fear, you wondered what the view would look like from up there. Don't deny it, I can see the inside of your brain. _

_ So where do I place you? I think I have an idea, it's going to be; _

" _ Gryffindor!" _

Dan let out a small breath that he hadn't even realised that he had been holding. Gryffindor was one hell of a house to be placed in, he was very conscious of the fact that there was a lot of attention on the house of Gryffindor. After all, some of the greatest wizards were rumoured to have come from that house.

Dan wasn't a great wizard, he was barely even sure that he was a wizard. If it wasn't for the fact that there had been a rather large reaction when he had first held his wand, he would have been convinced that there was a mistake, maybe it was someone else who should have been at Hogwarts rather than him.

"Piers, Elliot!" Dan's thoughts were broken by the announcement and he stopped focussing on the error of his being there and started listening in to Elliot's sorting. There mustn't have been much indecisiveness in the hat’s mind and within a few moments it made its decision loud and clear:

" _ Gryffindor!" _

Dan hadn't realised how worried he had been about losing the only friend that he had made. Logically he knew that it was still early and he had the chance to make many more friends other than Elliot.

There wasn't much reassurance in that though, because he knew how bad he had been at making friends at primary school and there wasn't much that had changed in his life since then, other than finding out about his inherent magic.

"Well, that's a mild relief, I was worried that I would have been put in Slytherin and then we would have become enemies," Elliot said as he forced himself into a space between Dan and a girl whose name he had already forgotten.  She shot them a mildly disgruntled look but allowed Elliot to slip in between them.

"We would have hated each other?" Dan asked.

"Well, there's a lot of tension between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but don't worry, I wouldn't let the colour of your tie lead me to hate you."

"Well, that's reassuring," Dan said sarcastically, "although speaking of ties, I'm not impressed; red and gold doesn't suit me."

"You'll learn to get used to it," Elliot said with a small shrug. “Or you have to at least; there's nothing you can do about the colours because you're officially a Gryffindor."

"Yay," Dan muttered, "I love wearing red."

"Sarcasm is unbecoming."

"Your face is unbecoming," Dan retaliated.

"Your mum-"

"Now that the Sorting has been completed," Dumbledore announced, breaking off whatever Elliot was about to say, "I would like to start by saying that here at Hogwarts we value your safety and education above all else. Myself and the rest of the faculty hope that you will enjoy your time here and that you will learn as much as you can with the resources that we can offer you.

"You will be challenged in more ways than you know, but we will be there to support you through it. I understand that this is quite the change for some of you, but we hope that you will adjust. Each house has its own house leader who you can go to, they are there to support you through anything.

"Please know that Hogwarts is your home and you can all feel comfortable being here. Hogwarts will always welcome you back.

"Now, please, enjoy your feast and then your prefects will lead you back to your dorms where I hope you will get a good night sleep because classes begin tomorrow and I would like you all to be bright eyed and bushy tailed."

There was a larger, louder smattering of applause and Dan was quick enough to understand that he should join in that time.

The food appeared on the table so suddenly that Dan wondered whether it had in fact been there the entire time. It looked delicious and Dan felt his stomach growl in anticipation for the feast that he was about to have.

As they ate, there was an extremely short wizard walking around the tables handing out their timetables for the year ahead of them.

Despite the magic that surrounded him and the seductive temptation of learning magic, Dan felt homesick. He missed his family and the small dining room table that they would have gathered around to share a meal - he wondered if maybe they missed him too, or if he was just thinking into it too much.

The feast didn't last long and just as quickly as its end came, Dan's regret came: he could feel all the food sitting in his stomach and he wondered why the teachers thought it was a good idea to give a bunch of eleven to seventeen year olds access to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

"Come on, Dan, the prefects are calling for all first years and you're practically falling asleep in your seat," Elliot muttered as he tugged on Dan's arm to prompt him to move towards the place where the prefect was shouting for them.

"Now, pay attention to where we're going because Hogwarts is pretty big and while you're new it's very easy to get lost," the prefect said. “There have been a fair number of first years in the past who have managed to get lost for longer than two days and we had to organise the ghosts into search parties to go and find them. Don't be one of those students, pay attention to where I take you because if you manage to make your way to the Great Hall or the common room then you will definitely find someone to help you out.

"I know that you guys are young and you want to trust everyone in sight, but don't ask for directions from someone in Slytherin, as they'll most likely send you to the opposite end of the castle than where you need to be."

"Why would they do that?" Dan heard someone ask.

"Because a lot of people are pretty insistent on maintaining the feud that is going on between Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"Should we be worried?"

"No, you're as safe as can be here at Hogwarts, but just be careful, being sensible is important," the prefect informed them as they started to lead the new Gryffindors away from the Great Hall.

Dan had barely been following the prefect for a minute when he realised that there was no chance that he was going to remember where the hell he was being taken. There were countless moving staircases that seemed to mess with his mind and Dan had no idea how he was meant to time it so that the staircases would be moving to the place that he wanted to go.

The paintings on the walls would whistle and wave at them in a vain attempt to distract them and Dan couldn't help but let them. He could only hope that Elliot was paying more attention to where they were going than he was because Dan was definitely going to end up being one of the pupils who required a search party to locate them.

"This is the Fat Lady," the prefect said, "she keeps guard of our common room and unless you know the password you won't be allowed to enter."

"Password?" The fat lady asked, staring down at them with what Dan could only describe as disdain.

"Eye of Newt," the prefect stated clearly so that both she and the hoard of first years could hear.

"Enter," the Fat Lady confirmed and there was a brief pause before the painting swung open on a hinge, sending the new students scattering out of the way of it. Where it had opened there was a arched tunnel entrance and Dan could see light flickering on the stone walls and hear the soft murmurs of people in the common room.

"Mind your heads, it's not the highest of entryways. We like to think that Godric Gryffindor was a bit of a short arse," the prefect said to them, gaining a few amused titters.

They were led through the entrance into the common room and the first thought that entered Dan's mind was that it was cosy. There were thick armchairs layered with cushions scattered around a large open fire that Dan was surprised to see in a school. He would have imagined that there were a million safety violations that would have prevented a fire from being in a school, but then a school designed for a witches and wizards wasn't really prone to following health codes, especially if the floating candles in the Great Hall were anything to go by.

"You are all split up into dorms, there are male and female dorms and each room allows for five students," the prefect said. “We allow you to pick who you want to room with, but please know that when you've chose we don't allow for you to change your mind, so make sure that you choose carefully, as the people you select are going to be with you for the next seven years of your life."

"Hey, Dan, want to put up with me for seven years?" Elliot asked nudging him in the side.

"It depends on whether it's going to be seven years of being poked by you?" Dan asked.

"A solid six at least," Elliot decided after a few moments of fake consideration.

"Oh, well," Dan said, "I guess if that's all, then I can maybe put up with it."

"Now all we need to do is find three other borderline tolerable people," Elliot said.

"Or we can just go to a dorm and wait for three people to turn up."

"Yeah, but those three people are going to be the losers who no one else wanted to room with," Elliot said, "and if we let them stay with us then we become losers too."

"Losers is harsh," Dan said, "and being popular is overrated."

"I'll take your word for it," Elliot said with a shrug.

So maybe Dan's new friend wasn't perfect, but there was space to learn and Dan would take that. After all, they were both in a completely new environment and dealing with situations that they had never had to deal with before. It was just reassuring to Dan that he had someone to relate to,since  they had both come from Muggle environments and they would both have to learn to deal with the wizarding world from scratch, that was a valuable thing in a new world.

"Come on," Dan said, "let's go find our room, I want to get plenty of sleep because we have a flying lesson tomorrow."

"You’re excited for flying?" Elliot asked.

"Aren't you?" Dan wondered.

"Of course not, I'm terrified of heights," Elliot said. "Why are you so excited? You said that you hated exercise while we were climbing all the steps to the common room."

"I do, but flying is different," Dan said with a shrug, "every child dreams of the moment they actually manage to fly, but Muggle kids have to grow up accepting it will never happen. We actually get the chance to do it!"

"Well, I'll support you from the safety of the ground, but when you end up in the infirmary don't come crying to me."

"If I fall off my broom I think I'll have bigger problems than crying about the fall," Dan said.

"True," Elliot agreed.

They finally made it to their dorm and Dan immediately dumped his case on the floor by the bed and promised himself that he would get around to emptying it the next morning. He was too tired to do it then and there and he would rather sleep.

The beds were bigger than strictly necessary, Dan thought as he felt himself begin to drift off to sleep, with extravagant drapes that he could close to block out the light and his roommates, it was an interesting choice and he wondered whether it was something that was in all of the houses' dorms or whether he was just in the odd house.

  
  



	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again thank you to my lovely beta @ fourthingsandawizard and the amazing artist for this fic @ayushikuu

The next morning brought with it a sense of overwhelming confusion and fear, his entire body frozen in an instant as soon as he was conscious enough to be aware that he was no longer in the bed that he had woken up in almost every morning since he was old enough to sleep in his own bed.

There were soft blankets surrounding him, and his head was resting on pillows so soft that Dan was wondering whether they were made from cotton wool. Thick drapes hung all around him and only a tiny stream of sunlight filtered through from where he had forgotten to close them properly.

Where was he? Where was his normal bed? Why was everything so different?

He was mildly embarrassed by the length of time that it took him to realise that he had actually woken up in his bed in his dorm in his new school; Hogwarts. With that realisation, his entire body relaxed and he let out a breath that he hadn't even realised he had been holding.

"Dan, are you awake?" Dan heard the hushed voice of Elliot muffled by his drapes.

"Yeah," Dan mumbled, "what time is it?"

"Seven o'clock, isn't that weird?" Elliot asked, "How we both woke up at the exact time we were meant to wake up to go for breakfast?"

"It's a magic school, you dingus," another person said, making Dan very conscious of the fact that there were three other students that he had never met in the dorm with him.

"I know that, I just didn't realise that it extended to waking us up at seven exactly."

Dan shoved his drapes to the side, and he was proud of himself for not letting himself look overly shocked at the way that they automatically tied themselves up perfectly as though having been done by a professional.

"Don't worry, that surprised me, too," a boy with a thick Welsh accent said, meaning that Dan had failed at acting as though everything was fine. "My brother warned me that they would do that, but it still took me by surprise."

"Oh, uh, yeah," Dan stammered, surprised to see that everyone else was sitting with their drapes open, seemingly having a friendly conversation. How long had he been lying in a mild freak out because he wasn't sure where he had woken up?

"Guys, this is Dan," Elliot said, babbling away enthusiastically. Dan was beginning to wonder why he had chosen such a happy go lucky person to be his friend. "He's the guy I was talking about, he's my friend."

"Hey, Dan, I'm Lewis," the Welsh boy said, "and this is Andy-" he motioned to a boy with thick rimmed glasses, "-and  Simon." He pointed towards a boy with short brown hair that was stiffly spiked up with an excessive amount of hair gel that had somehow managed to defy all attempts from the pillow at giving him bed head.

"Hi," Dan muttered with a small wave that somehow made him feel even more awkward than he did before.

There were a few moments of awkward conversation before Dan managed to make an excuse to head to the showers and get dressed, but sadly his reprieve was short lived because once he made it back to the dorm room he was quickly scooped into a group and informed that they would be working on locating the Great Hall together.

"More eyes and brains means there is a smaller chance of us getting lost," Elliot had declared proudly.

Dan hadn't wanted to inform him about the possibility that they would get even more lost with more people on the case, especially if they all remembered the route that they had walked differently, but there wasn't much point in arguing. After all, Elliot was too excited about their breakfast to care much about what Dan had to say. Ever since Simon had mentioned that there would be bacon, Elliot had been talking nonstop about the different ways he was going to smother it in sauce and gorge himself on it. It was mildly disgusting to hear about the intricate details of chewing bacon.

In the end, none of them even agreed on the first step of the directions. There were three potential staircases right outside of the dorm that all would lead to a potential other four locations, which would mean that there were countless other options and routes for them to take.

"I'm sure it was that way," Simon said, "I remember walking past a painting with flowers."

"Yeah, well," Dan said, "I can see five paintings with flowers from here."

"They were red flowers," Simon said.

"Alright, that narrows it down to three," Elliot said. "This is good, we're making progress."

"Are we really?" Dan wondered aloud.

"Of course, we've narrowed it down to three routes," Lewis announced, "that's progress."

"It's progress so long as you're right about the red flowers," Dan said.

"I mean, I think I am," Simon said.

"This is ridiculous," Dan said, "none of us are going to have any breakfast at this rate."

"My bacon," Elliot wailed melodramatically.

"Oh, shush about your bacon," Dan said, rolling his eyes. "We might have bigger problems than that if we don't remember how to make our way around."

"Hey, guys," an amused voice said, "are you a little bit lost?"

They whirled around in a synchronicity that was amusing to Dan; he however forgot that amusement fairly quickly as he laid eyes on the prefect that had led them to their common room last night.

"We forgot the way already," Dan admitted.

"Yeah, I figured. Don't worry, though," the prefect said, "it happens. You won't be the first or the last to get lost here."

"Really?" Elliot asked.

"Of course, remember that story about the search party that was sent out for first years?"

"Yeah,"

"Well, I was one of those first years," the prefect said with a snort. "It might seem like a maze at the moment, but trust me, it'll soon make sense."

"You needed a search party?" Andy asked incredulously.

"Hey, don't bully the guy who's making sure that you have some breakfast," the prefect said. He had a point, which Andy obviously realised as he snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.

The journey to the Great Hall in daylight was completely different: there were fewer painting sleeping, and some of the ones that had flowers in them were even filled with little bumblebees and butterflies that fluttered around and brought the painting to life, and Dan felt as though he would be able to reach into one of the paintings and one of them would land on his hand.

Even the light on the walls was a beautiful mixture of colours as it filtered in through the mosaic windows that Dan hadn't even noticed the night before. It was interesting to see.

The ghosts weren't as scary during the day time either, they were just drifting about and going about their business, but Dan didn't feel an inkling of fear. Maybe that was also because he had the knowledge that the professors wouldn't allow him to wander about in a dangerous environment.

Or, at least he thought. He didn't really know much about the teachers or what they would or would not stand for.

"-and then I'm going to eat twelve eggs that have been scrambled with butter and milk and salt and I'm going to die of pleasure on the spot."

"Can you stop talking about what you're going to eat and focus on remembering the way?" Andy asked.

"Fine," Elliot grumbled.

The most ironic thing in the world was when they finally made it to the made it to the Great Hall and sat down for breakfast, Elliot just nibbled at toast while the rest of them gorged themselves on all of the delicious breakfast delicacies that had been laid out in front of them.

"It occurred to me that we have a flying lesson in less than an hour, and suddenly my appetite is gone," Elliot admitted. "I don't really want to eat much because I'm pretty sure that there's a chance that I'll end up puking once my feet leave the ground."

"Yeah, we want to avoid that," Dan muttered, sliding the rack of toast away from his friend.

"You're really excited to fly?" Elliot asked once more. He had been asking Dan that all morning as though he would change his mind.

"Yes," Dan said, the 's' almost coming out as a hiss as he tried to stress just how much he was looking forward to the concept of flying.

"You're nuts," Elliot muttered, "you're crazy, they shouldn't let you on a broom, you should be forced to see a psychy first."

"A psychiatrist?" Dan asked.

"Shut up, I swear you should have been in Ravenclaw," Elliot said.

"You've known me less than twenty four hours and now you're deciding that there was a mistake with the Sorting Hat?" Dan asked.

"Has it really been that short a length of time?" Elliot asked. "I feel like I've been suffering with your presence for years."

"Wow, you sure know how to flatter someone."

"It's one of my best skills," Elliot agreed, batting his eyelashes.

"Well," Dan muttered, "you might want to think about developing some skills of evasion because it's time to head outside for our very first flying lesson."

"Damn it," Elliot muttered, "I was hoping you would have just eaten through it."

"No chance, this is going to be the best lesson of our lives," Dan said. "Or, well, my life."

"You're going to die and I'm going to be forced to lose my first and only friend," Elliot said with a sulky expression. "Your death will emotionally scar me, you see, and that means that I will never want to form another friendship because whenever I try, I will be reminded of the loss of you."

"I'm thrilled that you have planned out how much my death will affect you," Dan said. "Now, can we please get going?"

"Fine," Elliot groaned as he took his time standing up from the table, "but I reserve the right to tell you I told you so when things inevitably go wrong."

"Alright, alright, you can do that,  _ if  _ things go wrong."

"When," Elliot muttered.

It wasn't until Dan was standing beside a broomstick that he realised how crazy the concept of flying truly was. He was going to be up in the air on nothing but a thin wooden broom, and there was going to be nothing beneath him that would catch him if he fell, unless their Professor was quick enough to cast a spell that was somehow able to save him from a brutal fall.

Was he insane to fly? Would his parents be happy to know that he was planning to do something so recklessly dangerous? Would they tell him to live his life and take advantage of the opportunities that were presented to him? Or would they forbid him from ever getting on a broom and tell him to be sensible?

Dan honestly wasn't sure which one he would prefer. He was too eager to fly to look at the situation with common sense, but he had to admit that he was beginning to feel the first inklings of fear as he held his hand out over his broom.

"Well done, now say 'up' as firmly as you can," the professor - who had introduced herself as Madame Hooch - said, "if you mean it enough then it'll happen."

"Up?" Dan muttered unsurely looking at the broom. It didn't even wiggle on the floor like some others' were. "Up."

It was strange, no matter how much he said it, it wouldn't budge from the floor, and he found himself staring in frustration at the broom while a good number of his peers were clutching onto their brooms with smiles of victory.

"With conviction," the professor repeated, "if you're asking it, then not much is going to happen. You need to tell the broom that it has to obey you, if you give it too much power then you’ll be lost in the air and at the mercy of your broom. You never want to let the broom rule you, it's a terrible idea."

Dan sighed in frustration. "Up!" The word was almost a shout, but thankfully the broom snapped up from the ground and hit his hand with a force that was almost painful.

It was as if the broom was being bitter about being spoken to so harshly, but that was ridiculous, it was an enchanted piece of wood and it didn't have an ability to be bitter.

The professor walked around ensuring that everyone was managing to tempt their brooms from the ground. Dan couldn’t see anyone else looking at their palm in pain, so he assumed that he was the only one who had had that issue. It was while he was looking around that he overheard an interesting conversation. 

“Just hold your hand out,” Madame Hooch said insistently.

“No, I don’t want to learn to fly,” Dan heard Elliot reply determinedly. “That broom can stay on the ground, just like my feet because they’re not leaving this grass for a moment.” 

“I understand that it’s daunting, especially when you come from a Muggle background, but flying is a vital part of being a young witch or wizard,” she lectured. “You need to learn to fly, it is a skill that will help you throughout your life.” 

“I don’t think that it will help me at all since I don’t ever want to fly,” Elliot said, “so that means that the skill is useless to me.”

“But-” Madame Hooch faltered as if she had never before encountered a pupil who didn’t want to learn to fly, “you have to.” 

Her response was weak, as though she wasn’t sure whether she believed the words that she was saying.

“I don’t,” Elliot said surely.

It was a strange way to go about getting out of flying, Dan thought. Elliot didn’t want to fly because he was afraid of flying, which made complete sense, so why didn’t he just admit that to their teacher? Why was he avoiding the concept of just being too frightened to fly? 

Surely he wasn’t the first wizard to have a fear of flying, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Fears were quite a normal thing, no matter how irrational they seemed. Surely there were others in the wizarding world who had similar fears, they wouldn't force them to fly. Would they? 

“Get on the broom,” Madame Hooch said and Dan could hear her frustration becoming more and more evident. “I don’t have time for this.” 

“No,” Elliot said as he stuck his chin up in the air stubbornly, “if you want me to get on this broom then you’ll have to make me.” 

“Trust me,” came the muttered reply, “there are ways of doing that. Don’t tempt me.” 

Dan thought that her words were vaguely sinister, and he wondered whether it was a threat she had intended to make out loud or if it had been a slip of the tongue. 

“If I die, it was her fault,” Elliot muttered to Dan as soon as the teacher threw her hands in the air in frustration and stormed off over to the last few students who were staring at their brooms wiggling on the ground in despair. 

“She’s a teacher,” Dan said uncertainly, “she can’t kill you.” 

"Can't she?" Elliot wondered, and Dan suddenly wasn't so sure.

Madame Hooch had wandered away with her nose in the air and a haughty expression on her face whilst she muttered excuses that Dan didn’t care enough to listen to. 

"Alright," she called, gathering attention after a few moments, "now that you have your brooms, well most of you do-" It was impossible to miss the glare that was directed towards Elliot. "We can work towards actually flying.

"When you mount your broom, you will feel your magic connect with the magic of the broom and that is what makes it possible for you to actually fly. There is no set way to force your magic to connect, but once it happens you will know. There is very little that you can do to force it - some people's magic never connects with their broom and they find that they are never able to fly."

"That's me," Elliot muttered to Dan.

"Once your magic has connected, all you have to do is lift your feet, and once you do that you will be flying," Madam Hooch informed them. "Don't worry if you fall a few times, it's quite common, but what's important is that you get back on the broom, so to say."

"See, this is exactly why I'm not going to be on a broom," Elliot whispered, "it's practically suicidal."

"I ask that you all stay within five metres of the ground. It won't completely stop you from getting hurt, but it will certainly help to minimise the risk."

"Can't she cast an incantation to stop us from hitting the ground too hard?” Dan asked Elliot quietly. Despite them both being Muggleborn, Dan always assumed that Elliot knew things - usually he was right.

"I think she's just evil," Elliot said. "She could easily cast a cushioning charm, I think she takes pleasure in people's pain."

"That doesn't make any sense," Dan said, "she's a  _ teacher _ ."

"Teachers can be evil," Elliot said with a shrug. "When I was in primary school, we had a teacher who ate the class goldfish. She just swallowed it whole and then we never saw her again. My mum said that she was crazy, but I think she was maybe just a little bit hungry. She should have had more to eat with her lunch."

"That is nuts," Dan said. "My primary school French teacher used to eat dog biscuits."

"Maybe it's a teacher thing?" Elliot wondered. "Maybe they're all nuts."

"Maybe," Dan agreed.

"Boys, on your brooms, please," Madame Hooch called over to them. " _ Today, _ please."

"On you go," Elliot muttered to Dan. His own broom remained on the ground by his feet and he gave no indication of moving towards it, not that Dan had expected him to.

For a split second, Dan wondered whether he was crazy: he was holding onto a thin wooden broom and seriously debating mounting it so that he could fly up into the sky with nothing to catch him after he fell. 

It was completely insane. There they were talking about how insane they thought their teachers were, but the truth was that their insanity was nothing compared to the insanity that overtook the minds of almost all thirty first years as they began tentatively trying to make their way into the sky.

There was no doubt in Dan's mind that he wanted to fly, so he was going to do the exact thing that scared him and literally risk his neck on a broom just for that short thrill.

How was he meant to feel his magic connecting to the broom? Madame Hooch had said that he would just  _ know  _ when it had, but that was ridiculous as it meant that he was just standing there doing nothing. Until, he wasn't.

He felt it in an instant, the sharp but painless thrill of magic coursing through his body and creating a sense of peace. He knew that the broom was there, he could feel its magic, he could feel  _ it.  _ It was almost like it was alive, but that was impossible, it was a broom, it couldn't be alive. There was no way, and yet it was in his mind.

Logically, or maybe illogically, the next step was merely to lift his legs and that would be it, he would be flying. Or that would be the case if Madame Hooch was correct.

There was a dull thud to his right and Dan whirled around to see a girl sitting on the grass looking mildly dazed and confused.

"Your magic hadn't connected," Madame Hooch said, "don't rush the process, it won't help you."

"Do we have to 'connect' every time we try to fly a broom?" the girl asked.

"Yes, but don't worry, the more you do it the easier it will be," she said reassuringly. "Eventually it will happen so fast that there won't even be a pause between you grabbing the broom and making your way into the sky."

"I read that pro Quidditch players manage to make that connection in less than a second," Elliot whispered.

"Cool," Dan muttered.

"You don't seem to think it sounds cool," Elliot said with a grin.

"You're right, I don't."

"Are you going to go for it?" Elliot asked. "Or are you wising up and deciding that you don't want to be like those people and you've gained some common sense?"

"I'm going to fly," Dan said rolling his eyes. "There's nothing that you can say to change my mind on that one, sorry."

"Fine, go on then, I'll wait here while you risk your life."

It was just lifting his feet, Dan told himself, all he had to do was lift his feet and that would be it, he would be flying.

"Just do it," Elliot hissed.

"For someone who thinks that I'm making a huge mistake by wanting to fly, you're pretty eager to make me fly," Dan said.

"I can live vicariously through your idiocy."   
  
"Alright," Dan muttered to himself.    
  
He decided to just bite the bullet and go for it.    
  
He lifted his feet quickly, deciding to just get it over and done with, and clenched his eyes shut, bracing himself for the impact of hitting the ground. The impact never came: his feet were off the ground, but he wasn't falling, he was floating in the air, he was flying.    
  
Flying was a bizarre concept for a Muggle-raised wizard like Dan, and as he tentatively opened his eyes, he saw the ground that was still the same distance away from him as it had been before, but he could barely deal with the fact that his feet weren't on the ground.    
  
He was levitating on a broom.    
  
He wasn't the only one either, some of his classmates were already zooming about on their brooms. The majority of them were witches and wizards who had been raised flying, children who had flown about in their back gardens with their family and friends on the weekends. Children who thought nothing of climbing on a broom and jetting off into the air to feel the wind on their faces.    
  
Dan found that riding a broom was a lot like riding a bike: when he was motionless, it felt shaky and as though he could easily fall, but once he leaned forward and allowed himself to move, he found that he was able to balance himself better, and he felt safer and more stable. It was probably amusing for people with experience to see him fly as he was moving at little more than a snail's pace, but still, he was moving and he couldn't help but feel a sense of pride that he was actually doing it. He was actually flying.    
  
As the seconds passed and his motion continued, he felt his confidence grow and his speed pick up. Elliot had no idea what he was missing, and Dan wished he would later be able to find the words that would allow him to properly explain to him how nice it felt to have the wind brush against his cheeks and force his fringe off his face.    
  
The air was cold against his fingers that were tightly clenched around the broom handle; he may be in awe of the fact that he was flying, but that didn't mean that he was relaxing. With his growing confidence came greater heights. He was almost at the five metre limit that they had been told to stick to.    
  
"You're doing great, remember that the more subtle you are with your movements, the more fluidly you'll be able fly," Madame Hooch said. "Flying, you will begin to learn, is about the subtleties, not being over enthusiastic about your actions, which will lead to jerky movements and accidents.   
  
"Of course, the majority of you are new to flying so it's natural that you would be a little bit heavy handed with your movements."   
  
Dan let himself lose track of the voices around him and the shrieks and laughter of his classmates as they swooped in circles around him. He was almost able to pretend that he was in his own world, it was almost like he could pretend that he was was the only one flying.    
  
Without realising, he was soaring higher and higher and he had long since passed the five metre limitation that had been placed on them. He was too busy analysing the castle from all the new angles. Dan wasn't really one for admiring views, he didn't see the point in it: views and buildings were just there. There wasn't anything majorly spectacular about them, there wasn't any reason for him to obsess about a pretty view when it would always be there.    
  
Except Hogwarts was different. It was ethereal, it was something that Dan was worried would disappear if he looked away for too long. His entire life had changed so much that he was sure that he would wake up someday back in his bed in Reading, staring at the tattered blinds that he never opened.    
  
He was convinced that it was all some massive joke, something to bring his hopes up, something to make him see the magic in life before it was cruelly torn away. Was that a normal thing? For people to wonder when the magic would die? When reality would set in?    
  
"Dan!" 

The shout was faint and Dan could barely hear it, but somehow it managed to slip through into his mind. 

There was a brief moment of confusion as he wondered why he was being shouted at, until he looked down and realised that most of his classmates were significantly smaller than they should have been.    
  
He was too far up, he had gone past the five metre limit and then some. The entire world seemed to spin and turn nauseatingly as he realised that he needed to get to the ground before he fell to it.    
  
Dan forgot everything that Madame Hooch had said and he forced the tip of his broomstick towards the ground, forcing it to move in the direction he wanted without thinking about how much speed he was flying towards the ground with.    
  
The wind was whistling in his ears and tears stinging his eyes as the wind battered against him and the ground and people standing on it rapidly grew nearer and nearer. It wasn't until he heard the panicked shouts that he noticed that he was approaching the ground perpendicular to it and wasn't slowing fast enough.    
  
Dan saw grass, flashes of red and yellow from his tie, panicked looks, and then nothing.    
  
The nothingness didn't last long, and Dan awoke in a dark room, lit only by the moonlight filtering in through large uncovered windows. There were rows of beds lining either side of the room, and Dan could hear the slow, steady breathing of others, which informed him that he wasn't alone.    
  
It was the second time he had woken up and had no idea where he was. The confusion was rapidly becoming old news, and he found himself feeling tempted to just get up and walk out without even bothering to ask anyone for help.    
  
Maybe he would have tried to if it weren’t for the fact that his head was throbbing at a steady pace and there was the vague threat of nausea hinting at him when he moved his head too much.   
  
The last thing he remembered was the flashes of grass and screams before everything went completely blank. It was obvious that he had hit the ground with enough force to knock himself out. Surprisingly though, his head was the only place where he was feeling pain. Surely after hitting the floor with such a high force, he would have imagined that he would have significantly more pain from the accident.    
  
Clumsily he dragged his hands along his arms  feeling for the cannula that he could tear out to stop the flow of medications that were obviously making things difficult for him to process. Except there was no cannula, which meant that there were no drugs being pumped into his system, and the fact that the only pain he had was in his head was unrelated to factors such as medication.    
  
So what was going on?    
  
Logically he knew that he was most likely lying in the school's infirmary, and judging by the moonlight and darkness of the room, he had been passed out for a long time.    
  
Sitting up took more effort than he had thought it would, and his head spun threateningly as he swallowed back the bile that threatened to make itself known all over his bed sheets.    
  
"Generally people sleep when it's dark," a Northern accent filtered through the night air, sounding louder in the silence than it was.

"Where am I?" Dan asked.    
  
"You're a first year?" the person asked.   
  
"Is it that obvious?" Dan asked.    
  
"Kinda," came the reply, "most people are pretty clued up on what the infirmary looks like by the time they start their second year here."   
  
"Why?" Dan asked, suddenly recounting his conversation with Elliot about the possibility of their teachers attempting to murder them.

"Well, this is a magic school," the boy said. "There are a lot of accidents and things caused by magic in the wizarding world."   
  
"It all seems a bit dangerous," Dan murmured.   
  
"You're Muggleborn?" the boy asked.    
  
"Yeah, everyone seems to be able to tell that with barely any hints, do I stand out that much?" Dan asked.    
  
"Nah, you just speak about everything with a sort of wonder that you only hear from Muggleborns. For the rest of us magic is just a thing that has become an integrated part of our lives, we take it for granted," the boy said.    
  
"We?" Dan asked. "You're from a wizarding family?"    
  
"Yeah, my mum's a witch and my dad's a Muggle," the boy said, "but we - me and my brother - were raised in the wizarding world."   
  
"What year are you in?" Dan asked quietly.    
  
"Second year," the boy said, "but that's not the question that I would be asking to be honest."   
  
"No?" Dan asked. "What would you be asking?"   
  
"I would be asking what my name is," the boy said in amusement. "It's Phil, by the way."   
  
"Oh, right, yeah, that would have been a logical thing to ask," Dan muttered. "I'm Dan."   
  
It was nice to put a name to the faceless person that Dan was speaking to, it made him seem more real and less like a hallucination. Everything that Dan was going through felt like it was fake; he wasn't completely sure that he had woken up. Maybe he was still lying on the grass outside? Maybe his classmates were huddled around his unconscious form? Or maybe he had died, although if he was dead, then he was worried because he wasn't sure that there was any culture out there who described the afterlife as lying in a hospital while talking to a stranger.   
  
"How did you end up in here?" Phil asked.    
  
"Oh," Dan muttered, feeling his cheeks flush, and he was extremely grateful that the room made it too dark for Phil to see the red hue that was creeping up his neck, "it was stupid."   
  
"I would say that ninety percent of the people who end up in here are here because of their own stupidity," Phil said with a snort.   
  
"What about you?" Dan asked. "Are you here because of your own stupidity?"   
  
"I guess you could say so," Phil said. "I was in Herbology, and I didn't put my earmuffs on properly before I attempted to re-pot my Mandrake."   
  
"What the hell is a Mandrake?" Dan asked.    
  
"It's a plant, they have amazing anti-paralytic properties, but unfortunately their screams can kill."   
  
"If their screams can kill, then how are you alive?" Dan asked.    
  
"It was a young one, it just knocked me out," Phil said, and Dan imagined that he had shrugged as he spoke. "The older ones are the ones that you have to worry about."   
  
"If a plant can scream, does that not make it sentient?" Dan asked.   
  
"I guess in a sense," Phil said slowly, "why?"   
  
"Well, I was just thinking that in order to harvest the properties then you have to kill it," Dan said. "Is that not technically inhumane?"   
  
"It's best not to think about that part," Phil said. "In class we just learn how to help them grow and the best ways to look after them."   
  
"It sounds like a moral grey area depending on how much you care about plants," Dan muttered.    
  
"Come on, then," Phil said suddenly, "I confessed my embarrassing reason why I'm here, now it's your turn."   
  
"First flying lesson," Dan admitted, "I got carried away."   
  
"Flew too high, and then when you realised, you freaked out?" Phil asked.    
  
"Almost exactly," Dan said. "Once I realised how high up I was, I decided to go back down, but I went too far, too fast."   
  
"Hit the ground with a thump?" Phil said with a snicker.   
  
"Pretty bad one judging from the fact that I ended up losing the rest of the day," Dan said.    
  
"I did the same in my first year," Phil admitted, "I ended up breaking my arm in three places."   
  
"You were raised in the wizarding world though, surely you had flown around with your family?" Dan asked.    
  
"Yeah, but my parents had certain rules and I was only allowed to fly so high until I came to Hogwarts," Phil said. "So my brother decided to dare me to break the rules and I stupidly agreed."   
  
"Oh," Dan said, "why would your brother ask you to do that?"   
  
"He's a joker, or at least that's what my parents call him," Phil said. "I know that he doesn't mean any harm by any of it, he just gets carried away sometimes and proposes bets and dares that are a bit too unrealistic."   
  
"But you accept," Dan stated.    
  
"It's fun. What's life without a little risk?" Phil asks.   
  
"Says the guy sitting in a hospital bed," Dan said with a snort.   
  
"Excuse me," Phil said, "you're sitting in a hospital bed, too."   
  
"Yeah, but I've only been around magic for a few days," Dan said, trying to defend himself.    
  
"That's arguably worse," Phil said, "you've barely had any time around magic and you've still managed to injure yourself."   
  
"True," Dan agreed.   
  
There was a peaceful lull between the two of them as Dan considered what it was like for someone to grow up as a wizard rather than waiting until they reached eleven and being shoved into a new world.    
  
"Hey, Phil?" Dan asked quietly, wondering if the other boy had fallen back to sleep.    
  
"Hm?"    
  
"What's it like being a wizard?"    
  
"Uh," Phil seemed to falter, "Dan, you are a wizard, you know. You don't need to ask me what it's like."   
  
"No, I mean what was it like for you growing up surrounded by magic?" Dan corrected himself.    
  
"I guess I was pretty lucky growing up because my parents exposed me to the Muggle world and the wizarding world in equal proportions, there was never any discrimination against either one."   
  
"But you grew up feeling excited to come to Hogwarts?" Dan asked.    
  
"All kids do," Phil said with a fond tone, "it's the one thing that we all have in common. Older siblings tease their younger ones by telling them overly extravagant stories about their classes and things they get up to with their friends. By the time the day our letters are due to arrive, we're sitting at the windows looking for owls."   
  
"Is there a chance that an owl wouldn't arrive?" Dan asked.    
  
"Only if a person is a Squib."   
  
"A Squib?" Dan asked.    
  
"A person who is from a magical family but for some unknown reason has no magical abilities themselves," Phil said. "It's probably the biggest fear of all wizarding children."   
  
"Why?"   
  
"Well, imagine spending your life building up the idea of going to an amazing school of magic in your mind, daydreaming about the things that you'll get up to, trying out for the Quidditch team, learning new spells, only to find out that there's no way that you can go."   
  
"I guess that makes sense," Dan said, "but families would surely be supportive."   
  
"Most families would be, but among purebloods it's a huge deal," Phil admitted.   
  
"Why?"   
  
"It's a sign that something went wrong, that their bloodline isn't as perfect as they believed," Phil said. "Having a Squib in the family is evidence of a problem, and many pureblood families only care about power and status."   
  
"That sucks," Dan muttered.

"Welcome to the wizarding world," Phil said. 

"Thanks," Dan sighed, "it's confusing."

"Dan, we make things float with two words and a wand, of course it's going to be confusing."

Dan fell silent thinking over Phil's words. He was right, of course. He was focusing on everything with the mind of a Muggle when he needed to start thinking as a wizard. Everything he did was focused on trying to prove to himself that there was some error and he was going to torn away from the world that he was trying so hard not to let himself get attached to.    
  
"Thanks, Phil," Dan said quietly.   
  
"What for?"    
  
"I'm not entirely sure yet, but I think things will be a little more manageable," Dan said.    
  
"Hey, can you two shut up?" another voice piped up. "Some of us are trying to sleep here."   
  
"Oh, sorry," Dan muttered.    
  
"Yeah, sorry," Phil said. "Night, Dan."   
  
"G'night."   
  
Dan fell asleep almost immediately: the lack of awareness was a blissful reprieve from the pounding headache that he had been attempting to ignore during the brief conversation with Phil.    
  
By the time he woke up, Dan noticed that he was the only one left in the infirmary, which posed the interesting question: did Phil exist?    
  
Had the conversation been real? Or had his bumped head been a factor that could have caused a hallucination?    
  
"Oh, good, you're awake," Madame Pomfrey announced as she walked into the room. "After a bump like that on your head, you had a nasty concussion which I thankfully managed to reduce with a simple spell, but the brain is tricky. I couldn't do too much without risking permanently rewiring your neurons."   
  
"Oh," Dan whispered.    
  
"You were very lucky, a fall like that could have killed you," she continued. "I know that it was your first time on a broom, but honestly  what were you thinking?"   
  
"I wasn't," Dan admitted, "I was distracted."   
  
"I figured," Madame Pomfrey said. "Just please be more careful the next time you decide to climb on a broom."

"The next time?" Dan asked.

"You aren't planning to get on a broom again?"

"Well," Dan paused, "I hadn't really thought about it."

"Which means that you will," she said with a knowing smile. "I have met thousands of students in my time here, and one thing I can say for sure is that the first fall is the worst, the one that makes them question whether they will ever want to fly again. Many students say that they'll never get on a broom again, and then a few years later they're on the Quidditch team and they're paying me a visit almost every day."

"I'm not really sporty enough to be on a team," Dan said wryly.

"Never say never," came the simple reply. "Now, I think that you can be released."

"I can go?"

"Unless you want to stay?" she asked.

"No, thank you," Dan said immediately. "I'm sure I have things to do, classes to be in, you know? Busy day."

"Well, unfortunately you're going straight to your bed," Madame Pomfrey said. "I want you to relax for the rest of today, you can return to classes tomorrow."

"Alright,” Dan said.

"Now," she said, "off you go, that friend of yours has been pestering me all morning. He said something about needing to tell you he was right?"

That brought a smile to Dan's face. He was glad that Elliot was resilient in his promises. He was pretty sure that he had made himself a good friend to spend his time at Hogwarts with, and a small part of his mind wondered whether Phil could have also been a good friend.

All he knew was that he was a second year, he hadn't even found out which house he was in. Given the proportion of students at Hogwarts, his hopes weren't high for bumping into him again, and he couldn't help but feel an inkling of sorrow at that.

Still, he would enjoy the remainder of his first year, and hopefully manage to attend at least one class without ending up in the infirmary.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on tumblr/twitter @quiffedphil :D hope you liked!!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the start!! I'll be uploading weekly and the chapters should be a similar length to this one <3
> 
> come find me on tumblr @[quiffedphil](http://quiffedphil.tumblr.com/) and on twitter at [quiffedphil](https://twitter.com/quiffedphil). Original, I know.


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